1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for the control of telephonic voting, and more particularly for telephonic voting using mobile stations in a digital mobile communication network.
2. Description of Related Art
Traditionally, a problem with voting by telephone in the conduct of a vote or poll has been congestion of the network. Thus, when the telephone numbers used to receive the users"" votes are publicized or announced in a radio or television broadcast, a large number of people attempt to call those numbers at the same time, thereby overloading the network. The only heretofore-known attempted solution to this problem has been efforts to design such programs so that the vote-transmitting phone calls are not all received at the same time but, rather, as a steadier load.
It is therefore the desideratum of the present invention to provide a method and system that eliminates, or at least substantially overcomes or reduces, the drawbacks and deficiencies of the prior art as for example hereinabove described.
It is a particular object of the invention to provide a method and system for predeterminately staggering the sending or transmission of votes in a telephonically-conducted poll or vote that is carried out using mobile telephones or communication stations to thereby avoid overloading of the network.
The system of the invention for controlling telephonic voting in a digital mobile communication network that includes one or more mobile stations provides for advantageous control of the telephonic voting being carried out using the mobile stations. In accordance with the invention, the system comprises a polling server which is used to perform calculations regarding the statistical reliability of the voting, on the basis of which a certain proportion of the mobile stations is authorized at any given time to concurrently transmit votes. The reliability of the voting and the proportion of mobile stations so authorized are therefore statistically defined. If, for example, during a first polling round every hundredth mobile station number is authorized to send a vote and only 100 votes are received, then in the next round every tenth mobile station may be authorized to send a vote, as a consequence of which it is anticipated that another 1000 votes are likely to be received. Once about 2000 votes or 20% of the total number of votes have been received, the voting result is statistically correct with an accuracy of 0.1 to 0.5%.
The inventive system further includes a control channel which is used to transmit a voting authorization from the polling server to mobile stations which are to thereby be authorized to send a vote, and a voting application that is used by the mobile station to monitor messages transmitted in the control channel and to send a vote after the authorization has been received. The voting application is thus implemented in conjunction with the mobile stations, and may for example be stored on a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) that is associated with a particular mobile station.
As contrasted with the prior art, the present invention advantageously provides for staggered transmission of votes in telephonic polling via mobile stations, thereby obviating overloading of the network. The results of the voting can moreover be predicted with enhanced statistical reliability, even if for example only ten percent of the votes are actually sent to the polling server and the rest not sent at all. The voting activities can be controlled and limited to a very narrow range of time while nevertheless accommodating a large number of voters since the control of the service is with the polling server.
In one or more embodiments of the invention, a variety of features may be individually or variously collectively implemented. For example, the control channel may be a Cell Broadcast channel. In addition, the voting authorization may be provided using a predetermined protocol. The vote may moreover be transmitted from the mobile station via an SMS (Short Message Service) message, a USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) message, or other like or corresponding message or signal or transmission. The mobile communication network may be a GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) network or other digital mobile communication network.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawing. It is to be understood, however, that the drawing is designed solely for purposes of illustration and not as a definition of the limits of the invention, for which reference should be made to the appended claims.